Gusmão, João Maria - Paiva, Pedro

O Homem Tocha,

João Maria GusmãoLisbon, Portugal, 1979; lives in Lisbon

Pedro PaivaLisbon, Portugal, 1977; lives in Lisbon

O Homem Tocha, 200716mm, color, silent

The films of João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva investigate magical happenings, physical phenomena, ritualistic events, and scientific experiments by combining photograph, installation, sculpture and writing in the exercise of creating an experimental philosophy. Their works are depict commonplace and amateurish scenes or situations that constitute a cosmology that is invented departing from the principles and methods of science. The humor in their works emerges from a sophisticated web of ideas, that reinvents laws of the world in a fictional and poetic way.

Many of the films shown here were produced during periods of the artists´s residence in and around Brumadinho and the region of Ouro Preto and Mariana, between 2007 and 2009. Their prolonged stays in these locations revealed characters, stories, and myths to the artists that led to these films of a more or less narrative character. Their stay in Brazil is one of a series of periods of residency that the artists have dedicated themselves to in various parts of the world, especially in the former Portuguese colonies